What this college student has learned about the world and the importance of having a voice.

Post navigation

It has officially been FOREVER since I’ve last blogged… So sorry! Finals week is coming up, so I wanted to make sure I got something in before Christmas break. It’s crazy how quickly this semester has passed. It’s as if yesterday, it was the beginning of September. On the other hand, I am completely ready for new classes. If anything has felt like it has taken four months, it’s my classes. Thank goodness for the upcoming 4 week break.

To bring me back to the blogging world, I’ve picked up another daily prompt.

You get to choose one superpower. Pick one of these, and explain your choice:

I am a double major in Public Health and French. I love to travel, and I lived in France for 10 months last year. I’m definitely picking the ability to speak and understand any language. It’s always been a dream to be able to just wake up and speak any language, no matter how obscure. That would be the greatest superpower ever.

Language is powerful. Words are powerful. I hope you’ve been able to see how much I adore words and writing… being able to do that in multiple different languages would be incredible. Words and language and culture are all interconnected, and I love all three of them so much.

I guess I can’t really explain why I’d love so much to speak all the languages in the world. I just do. It’s something that identifies me, I guess. Language and culture and learning. I find it fascinating. I still love French the most, but having this superpower to speak all the languages would make traveling and communication so easy.

I guess the point of this was just to ramble on about how much I love languages, French in particular. Ok then. That’s it. Back to studying for my biology laboratory practical final exam.

<3

~Caroline

PS. Time to get that Christmas music blasting! It’s December! Bring on the holiday cheer!!! <3

This is what blogging is for. Writing is my preferred art form. I can’t draw, I can’t sculpt. I depend on the power of words to relay the meaning behind these inner thoughts.

One month left until finals, until the semester is over. The weather is getting colder, although not nearly as cold as the midwest. Life’s moving along but I’ve been so involved and so busy here on campus. I wouldn’t change my experiences for anything.

For the past few years I had pretty long hair. I work at the pool in the summer, so I decided to chop off a foot and donate it to locks of love before I started college. When I was in France last year, though, I often braided my long hair because Paris can get pretty windy… and my host family would always note that I looked like Pocahontas when I did so. If you really pay attention, she doesn’t actually braid her hair. Maybe for a bit of the movie she has it in one long braid, but for the majority of the time she leaves it just like that. Either way, that gave me an idea for a Halloween costume.

I already bought brown fringed boots last year… so that part was covered. All I needed was a fringed-native american looking dress. Difficult, but not impossible to find. I know a lot of people think it is somehow degrading when a bunch of people decide to be native americans for Halloween, but they’re not doing it out of disrespect. I purely want to be Pocahontas (or sort of resemble a native american) and sing “Colors of the Wind”.

On that note, I must admit that “Colors of the Wind” is not even my favorite song from the movie. I absolutely love “Just Around the River bend” for its powerful, motivational message. Also, there’s a small portion where you can really belt your heart out <3

Hope you all enjoyed today’s Tuesday’s Tune! Enjoy the rest of your day : )

It has been quite an exhausting week and I’m in need of some relaxation… in the form of retail therapy. Today we don’t have classes because it’s Fall Break. Some friends and I have decided to get off campus this afternoon… we would have gone to the Mall to see the Smithsonians, but since the Government is still shut down, we had to make other plans. There’s a HUGE mall in Pentagon City, so now’s my chance to go shopping! (or window shopping… depending on how expensive everything is : ) But yeah… with the government closed, I cannot go to the capital and cultivate my growing mind. Instead, I’m forced to go shopping.

Why am I talking about shopping and clothes? First, I just need a break after this past week. I wrote a 10 page paper about the role of religion and spirituality in an individual’s health decisions, got back a less-than-satisfactory exam, and basically didn’t sleep at all for 5 days straight. A break would be nice. Second, I needed to post something this week and found another daily prompt!

How important are clothes to you? Describe your style, if you have one, and tell us how appearance impacts how you feel about yourself.

After living in France for 10 months, I learned a thing or two about style. For me, style is a combination of taste and comfort. I love comfortable clothes… but it’s just not acceptable to walk around in oversized t-shirts and sweatpants all day long. So, my everyday style consists of worn-in jeans or jean shorts (comfortable but stylish because, hey, gotta love jeans…) and a plain t-shirt (although this can vary depending on the weather, occasion, etc.) Overall, I look something like this:

But that’s not a picture of me, ok? Just found it on the internet. It’s a pretty simple style, but I can spice it up by adding jewelry or by doing my hair… Oh how I love to work with hair to change an outfit! Shoes are important, too, but sometimes you just don’t have a choice when the weather is so uncompromising. If I could have any style, it would be this:

I love Ralph Lauren! I’m not overly preppy, but these clothes just have a level of chic that I fall in love with each time I see them. Not that I could ever afford an entire closet of Ralph Lauren, though… Anyway, I definitely think that clothes say a lot about a person. Not all the time, but in most situations, you can start to get a general idea about what a person is like based on their style choices. Everything doesn’t have to be brand name for someone to look chic and put together. I like that. People that are creative with their clothes are brave and outgoing… I wish I could do that more often! Personally, I just like dressing nicely each day because I feel like I am putting clothes on for a reason. At the moment, that reason is school, but it makes my going to school that much more legitimate.

I’m still trying to find my style and build my wardrobe, but I love the basics. Plain black and white t-shirts, camisoles of every color, simple pull-over sweaters to layer with my polos and button ups, and of course, jeans! Shoes are another story. I’ll have to get into that another day : ) If anyone’s interested, here’s my pinterest where I spend hours looking at clothes in random shades of blue and burgundy. Yes, Kate Middleton is my style icon. So chic. <3

The first day of autumn was 12 days ago. Before September 22, I remember how awkwardly cold it was in DC for a few days… and now, it’s 80 degrees and I’m wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

What’s going on with the weather???

I have categorized this post under “weather” because, as the description for the category states, the point of these posts is to embrace my Midwestern culture. “Because I’m from Iowa… and you always know you’re talking to an Iowan if the first thing they talk about in a conversation is the weather.” So true.

I’m happy to be living a bit further south, but honestly, things don’t change that much. Sometimes it’s rainy, sometimes it’s humid. Sometimes it’s windy, sometimes it’s sunny. I don’t mind a change in the weather… when it makes sense. Nothing makes sense, here. I feel as if the weather in the capital has become bipolar… perhaps this is reflective of the government shutdown that began on October 1st…

It’s all anyone can talk about! I was so excited to be living in the capital of the US, and now everything’s closed. I can’t go to the Mall, I can’t go to the Library of Congress and use my special access student reader card. All of this because the people we’ve elected to represent our voices can’t make a decision. Granted, that decision is about a million, billion, trillion, dollar spending budget, but hey… it’s their job. I’m a student to go to school, so that’s what I’ll do. (No matter how weird things are getting in the city around me… anyone hear about the woman that tried to run through a barricade on October 3 downtown? Crazy stuff.)

Things are getting interesting, that’s all I have to say. I also have to study for midterms and write a few 10 page papers… we’ll see what I have to say about that when I finish writing them.

You know that feeling where you distinctly recognize something, but for some reason you simply cannot recall how you know it?

Yeah, that happened to me… and it bothers me so much!

I randomly started humming a song… and I knew I had heard it somewhere, in some context. For some crazy reason, I can’t manage to recall when or where that was. The more I think about it, the harder my head hurts, but I have a feeling it must have been when I was in France… I’ll stick to that until I think of a better answer.

It took me a while to figure out the song, too. I just started humming part of it, without the words. That was an issue. I managed to get four words out to type in my google search bar: you let her go. Boom. Mission complete. Mysterious song found.

Et voilà, there you go. I like listening to this song. It feels so raw, but in a good way. It would also sound good if I could learn it on the piano… hmmm, that sounds like my next project : )

It’s been busy these past weeks… I honestly wish I could have blogged more, but it just wasn’t possible. Now that it’s the weekend, I have a spare moment to bring to you yet another blog based on the Daily Prompt!

Grab the nearest book. Open it and go to the tenth word. Do a Google Image Search of the word. Write about what the image brings to mind.

The nearest book I grabbed was The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. We are reading this in my Multicultural Health class and it’s incredibly interesting. It covers the issue of cultural competency, health care, and tradition. It questions the American health care system and immigration policies in the 1980’s. It tells a story of a young, Hmong girl who suffers from epilepsy. Sometimes when reading, I found myself wanting to just yell at the doctors to get a translator or something… At least break the language barrier! Well, enough of that, here’s the word and corresponding image:

Cassette.

This was actually a very interesting word to fall upon. It makes me think vintage, history, old-America. Why did we stray from cassette tapes, anyway? Technological advances, that’s why. If you really think about it, the rate at which society advances in the field of technology is astoundingly quick. The internet was only created in 1989… and now everyone can’t wait to update to iOS 7… because anything else is just too old. How many people do you know complain constantly at how slow their computer is running, or how they can’t wait until they get to upgrade to a new phone? The idea of constantly being wired, connected, shows how far we have evolved as a society.

But, cassettes still seem to hold their grandeur. When someone pops a cassette into a car player, or even at home, it brings back memories for people like me, and other millennials. People like the look of “vintage” objects, and cassettes are a good way to bring back the old days. Thinking back to the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, I feel like a lot of people see today as difficulty and hardship, while they see the past as a simpler, less demanding time. Movies, books, and the media in general help support this. However, there were just as many problems with the economy, national security, and health care as there is now.

I feel that people like to step out of “this time” and go back in history because it allows them to focus on something else. For a moment, they are not bound by the expectations of today’s society and they feel more free. It’s a sort of escape, but only mentally. Physically, of course, we cannot go back in time, but we can resurrect the values and ideologies of the past and apply them to today’s world. If something worked back then, who’s to say it won’t work now? Have we really changed that much as a species? Besides technology and the material aspect, people still make the same mistakes over and over again. Perhaps a moment back in time is what we really need in order to reflect upon the next course of action.

So, cassette = vintage. Vintage = history. History = old American values and perspectives. After all, it is by learning from our mistakes that we can have hope to progress in life.